American Classics

[Beef Oven!]

Suffy covered them on his Journey.


http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...nin#post289485

Thanks, teamsaint.

I'd forgot about that.

[Beef Oven!]

Milton Babbitt - Melismata

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Milton Babbitt - Melismata

- this Friday (29th Jan) marks the Fifth anniversary of the great man's passing. Can't see anything to mark the occasion on R3: presumably they're waiting until the week beginning 9th May to mark the Centenary, instead ...

[Beef Oven!]

- this Friday (29th Jan) marks the Fifth anniversary of the great man's passing. Can't see anything to mark the occasion on R3: presumably they're waiting until the week beginning 9th May to mark the Centenary, instead ...

Yes, that'd be it.

This CD arrived last week. I ordered it following the conversation with ahinton and yourself about Babbitt and Sessions. Previously, I only had 'Correspondences' on DG, James Levine & Chicago SO.

I bought some Sessions, too. Enjoying Babbitt more. Early days, though.

[Beef Oven!]

William Schuman - Symphonies 3 & 5
Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Gerard Schwarz. Naxos.

[Pulcinella]

Silly me: have only just realised that the Fifth Symphony is actually the one simply called Symphony for strings on this Bernstein Century release I have:

http://www.amazon.com/Schuman-Symphonies-Nos-Symphony-Strings/dp/B0000029XY

[Suffolkcoastal]

The Bernstein recordings of symphonies 3, 5 & 8 from the 1960s are by far the best recordings, I doubt the performance of No 3 will ever be bettered.

[Beef Oven!]

William Schuman - Symphony #3
New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein. Deutsche Grammophon.


IMVHO, at least as good as Lenny's earlier recording, but much better sound quality.

[EdgeleyRob]

David Diamond

String Quartets 2,9 & 10

Potomac String Quartet

Symphony No 8

Seattle Symphony Orchestra,Gerard Schwarz

[Lat-Literal]

William E Bolcom - Three Ghost Rags - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brLYkFt2WBE
Artie Shaw - Concerto for Clarinet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS8WDJZnu_A
Horatio Parker - A Northern Ballad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr9Dsuh2aRw
Elmer Bernstein - To Kill a Mockingbird - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5cKSMI6_8k

[cloughie]

David Diamond

String Quartets 2,9 & 10

Potomac String Quartet

Symphony No 8

Seattle Symphony Orchestra,Gerard Schwarz

Wasn't he the guy who wrote the Idyll to Ravel, the above recorded it as a coupling to Daphnis.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Yes cloughie, he did indeed compose the Elegy in Memory of Ravel.

[Lat-Literal]

Samuel Barber - Knoxville : Summer 1915 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q3IZ8TMd6Y
William Schuman - Chester Overture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdJuZjp9230
Carl Ruggles - Sun Treader (1931) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6soFlEZAMYw
Milton Babbitt - Ensembles for Synthesizer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5n1pZn4izI

Andre Previn - A Harp Concerto (2007) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM6DDoTjXXw
Clarence Cameron White - Levee Dance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsB6xjerPSw
Roger Sessions - From My Diary : '37-40 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjoZGXS11uw
GC Menotti - The Medium/Monica's Waltz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG0CSDaNjSY

[bluestateprommer]

Alan Fletcher at the Aspen Music Festival recently banged the drum for American orchestral music in both the Grauniad and at WQXR's website:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/jun/28/american-composers-neglected-aspen-music-festival-classical

http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/5-mid-century-american-works-deserve-be-included-cannon/

[Lat-Literal]

I've had Harris 3 ,Diamond 4 and Copland 3 in my collection for years but,as with ts,it's sc's symphonic survey that has encouraged me to investigate more American symphonies.

The 4th (folk song) symphony of Roy Harris is a recent discovery,an absolute delight.

Having listened to the 1st which apparently was the first American symphony to receive a commercial recording, I am now listening to the 4th ("Folk Song Symphony"). Being spiritually "of log cabin" I am enjoying it a great deal. Your musical tastes and mine do seem to coincide a lot of the time. I will certainly be listening to more Harris symphonies.

Also I have now pretty much experienced Diamond's 1-5 and 8 which is to say that I have listened to the vast majority of each. While I can appreciate their quality, I find them a bit complex and even,densely urban, albeit in the best sense, and the fact that it is the 3rd that stands out to me probably says a lot. I think most would choose the 5th and 4th. I even have the 1st and 2nd above those. This is a failing in me. To help, I did listen to an interview with Diamond on his 75th birthday in which he described his symphonies and came across well. He was writing his 10th and 11th at that time and felt renewed urgency because his doctors had given him a maximum of ten years. As it happens they were wrong and he had another fifteen. Anyway, there is enough in what I have heard to want to listen to his later symphonies, not that all are easy to access. His music might grow on me.

Whether he was keen on Harris I don't know but he did point out in the interview that only he - oh and Roy - had been prolific with symphonies in the Golden Age. Consequently, once I have got a handle on these two, the rest should be a doddle. This is the interview which may be of interest to readers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR9N-z4OktM